Rushing to judgment in 2018---and 1964

Of course the FBI's abbreviated supplemental investigation into Brett Kavanaugh's background was never supposed to be serious. It was just a PR stunt to mollify a few Republican pseudo-moderates in the Senate and influence public opinion.

The "rush to judgment" expression was used a lot during the Kavanaugh hearings, since there was no real deadline about confirming the contemptible right-wing operative as a Supreme Court Justice. The Repugs simply wanted to get it done before the midterm elections.

Recall that the last time the term "Rush to Judgment" was used during an important---and shameful---political crisis was after the assassination of President Kennedy. That was the title of Mark Lane's 1966 book on the assassination, which holds up pretty well, by the way. (You can find some of the important issues Lane raised in the book in his National Guardian article he wrote less than a month after the assassination).

The moral of the story: rushing to judgment on important issues never has anything to do with finding the truth.

President Johnson wanted to get the Warren Commission---composed entirely of Southern Democrats and Republicans!---to finish its pseudo-investigation of the assassination before the 1964 election, which it duly did, publishing the ludicrous Warren Report in September, 1964.

The crime of the century investigated and solved in ten months! Those writing the report had an original deadline of June 1, 1964, to submit their reports on the various issues, which was extended to July 1.

That this was how the Warren Commission conducted its hurried and slipshod investigation was confirmed by another book published in 1966: Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth, by Edward Jay Epstein.

Epstein shows how the Warren Commission proceeded in bad faith and in great haste to get its report out quickly. 

One of the many shocking examples in the book is about Sylvia Odio, who claimed she met Oswald in the company of two Cubans in September, 1963.

Epstein:

If Mrs. Odio's testimony was accurate, it had important implications for the investigation; it meant that Oswald had two associates, not known to the Commission, who were involved in his trip to Mexico not long before the assassination (page 102).

Commission investigator Wesley Liebeler examined Odio's story. He

found that a number of details in the woman's story coincided with facts she could not possibly have known, and he gave the matter further attention...When Liebeler submitted a memorandum to [general counsel] Lee Rankin showing the fallacy in the earlier analysis, Rankin said "At this stage, we are supposed to be closing doors, not opening them." (103)

Another door closed and soon: case closed!

Speaking of which, see my review of the establishment's favorite book on the JFK assassination: The assassination of JFK: Case not closed.

The key to understanding how stupid the Single Bullet Theory is: locate the bullet holes on Kennedy's body and in his clothing. The bullet hole in the "tie knot" is an entrance wound, as the doctors at the hospital could see before they did a tracheotomy. There is no bullet hole in the back of the neck that lines up with the pseudo-exit wound in the "tie knot" area. The only wound in the back is six inches below the collar line.

I explain all this here.

The Republican Club

Thanks to Artnet.

Jeff Danziger